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Internet Histories and Futures

Yesterday, I attended a symposium which was primarily concerned with highlighting the history of the internet as a means of understanding the future of the internet. Internet Histories/Internet Futures was held at the University of Sydney, and included presentations from Gerard Goggin, Tom Boellstorff, Jean Burgess, Mark McLelland and Tama Leaver.

As you might expect, a forum such as this had a strong focus on policy and regulation, or how not to stop the internet. I couldn’t help but think as I listened to each speaker talk that there is a canyon between cultures of uses and internet regulation (if it even exists in some of these spaces/ideas). As policy develops, it is probably about two or three years behind cultural adoption, and cultures of uses on the internet move at such a rapid pace (and are often buried very deep) that internet regulation would merely complicate things further because of the disjuncture of semantic understanding. That is, policy and legal frameworks do not process the indexical cultural meaning to provide a suitable enough understanding of the ecosystem.

Mark McLelland highlighted this beautifully through the subcultural fandom activities such as Mpreg (male pregnancy) and Yaoi (Reappropriation of boys in love) as slash fiction. In both cases, they have fairly extreme user-created content that if read incorrectly will miss the close representation of gender politics by Japanese women. A undoubtedly complex undertaking to correctly regulate this cultural use (if regulation is at all needed?). How would regulation approach this hot potato:

So the five areas that were represented yesterday (disability, universal accessibility, platform politics, gender subcultures, birth and death online) all require highly particular approaches for regulation. The problem, is how to translate the cultural languages into the policy arena. A take away point for me that I am sure we will work into our future work, particularly around increased citizenry through mobile internet cultural practices.

Some rough notes from each presenter:

Gerard Goggin

A cue from internet freedom, political history of languages etc

The way we imagine the history of the internet is culturally based and not well understood

New understanding of disability and internet future – based on characteristics

The technological development of interfaces for impaired promotes cultural and communication innovations – visual communications for the deaf (e.g. Skype)

A disconnect between media histories more broadly, could the internet histories connect the collection of media and comms?

Cultural disability is played out through language – there is no word for disability in aboriginal

A dissatisfaction with the current policy frameworks is present within academia – disability is a clear

Tom Boellstorff

Universal accessibility includes access for X from the get go – universal theory builds on disability theory – not the ramp at the back of the building but incorporated in the intial design

Not the deficit but the potential of the set technologies for affordances

Similitude and difference, time and space, futurity are three concepts and three historical moments this work is based on

Tech can shrink space but not time, it will never be the same time in two different places

The collapse of online/offline dichotomies is sloppy, and maybe digital means more

Let’s explore the negative

The gaps between the digits, the 1 and 0s are never .5 – they’re always separate

Indexical is context based, it links something to something (semantics)

Social media histories – interface designs, the landing page etc can tell us a lot about the internal discussions towards development

How the design shifts is representative of the internal discussions politics etc

Mark McLelland

The anxiety of the uses of the internet, porn on the internet and children

Concepts are thrust upon us by media i.e. Rudd and the Hensen children moment

The concept of ‘child’ has a huge impact on society, particularly around the age of consent

Mpreg as a femantasy scene

Yaoi/BL genre hetalia

Theses scenes are looking at the role reversal of the empowerment of women through directed sexual narrative

Young people are taking control of their own sexuality through the grey area of legislation surrounding child pornography online -

The law isn’t very good at semiotics, the meaning loses it’s context

Interpretation of the legal system is significant within these practices -it seems to me there should be a body that integrates between communities of interests and legal representatives and regulatory frameworks

There is clearly a language barrier between the cultural practice and the legal system – is this a call for intermediation?

Tama Leaver

Agency of the young and old online

Facebook now has terms for the death of a user – the account will be closed down